BOOK REVIEW: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John MandelTitle: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
Published by Knopf Publishing Group
Published: April 5th 2022
Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction
Pages: 272
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher, Edelweiss
Goodreads

The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.

Sea of Tranquility continues and adds to the story and world Mandel explores in Station Eleven. While this book can certainly stand on its own, there is a richness added to it if you have already read Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel. Each of the stories are connected, as if Mandel is creating a kind of multiverse, and each of the stories explore characters making the best of things in the worst of times. 

Sea of Tranquility is a matryoshka of interconnected stories, each connected by a singular event occurring at different points in time. The first story takes place in 1912, in which Edwin, the exiled son of an English family, ends up on the Island of Caiette on which he has a strange experience in a forest with visions of a station of some kind and a violin. The second story occurs in 2020, in which Mirelle wants to discover the mystery behind a glitch in a video that is set in a forest and set to violin music. The third story occurs in the future, in which Olive has published a book in which there are scenes echoing the experiences of Edwin and Mirabelle with the forest and the violin. When she meets a man named after the main character in her book, Olive’s life is turned upside down, and Gaspery-Jacques Roberts discovers more about his purpose and the nature of reality. 

One thing I have truly enjoyed about Mandel’s writing is that it’s quiet, it builds up to something more almost without you realizing it’s happening, and the end results, to me anyway, are satisfying and emotionally resonant. I reread Station Eleven this year, and it’s strange to revisit a pandemic novel during an actual pandemic, but there’s a lot of hope in it, hope that there is something greater in humanity to overcome the strangeness of life. Sea of Tranquility is about finding out what it means to belong, how technology affects us throughout the years, and is wistful, wishful, adding onto that hope that even though in the future we’ll face pandemics, strife, and fear, it’s connected. We’re all connected.

Many thanks to Knopf Publishing Group and Edelweiss for the eARC! All opinions are my own.

BOOKENDS: January and February 2022

- Meg

Today, March 1, 2022, marks the 6th anniversary of fairybookmother.net! Thank you so much for following along! Even though I’m not as consistent as I would like to be, a lot has happened in the last couple of years, and I’m proud of myself for sticking with something, even sporadically, for as long as I have.

I started a new book journal in 2022, and that generally makes me more excited for the reading year ahead! I’m planning on a post about my spreads and what I plan to do with it in the upcoming weeks. I’m also trying to focus more on spending less, using my library more, and utilizing Edelweiss to help 1) curb the spending on new books that I know I’ll read once and 2) read new things and hopefully be able to share my thoughts about new and upcoming reads with you!

These Bookends posts also seem to function better for me when they’re done every two months because for some reason I can’t seem to get them done on time monthly.

I also finally got my things delivered! Long story short, the moving company I booked is shady, packed up my things in May, and I finally got them to deliver on February 27. Eight months later. I still have to go through everything, I have to buy some new bookshelves, but I’m excited to have my collection back because there have been a few things I would have been really sad to lose. It’s also a little overwhelming because I have so many books.

CURRENTLY READING

This weekend I am going to tab out place markers in The Big Book of Science Fiction to finish it by the end of April. I finished all of the books I had started in February and all of my current reads (aside from BBSF), so these three are ones I’m starting right away. One Italian Summer was sent to me by Atria (thank you!), and I remember devouring/enjoying In Five Years, so I hope this has the same effect. The cover also has gold foil on it, making it super pretty. Tripping Arcadia is a new release in the gothic fiction vein that’s gaining popularity, especially since Crimson Peak and Mexican Gothic. I’m already thinking of making a gothic-themed post in the near future! Now that the second book’s out, it’s time for me to finally start House of Earth and Blood. I’m not always into contemporary/urban fantasy, so we’ll see how I like this one!

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer
📓 One Italian Summer – Rebecca Serle (thank you, Atria!)
📓 Tripping Arcadia – Kit Mayquist (thank you, Dutton!)
📚 Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood – Sarah J. Maas

FINISHED READING

I read 11 books in January! it was a pretty good reading month with a few duds. I didn’t particularly enjoy Lady Jenny’s Christmas Portrait because I thought it could have functioned better as a novella with the same arguments/drama cycles happening multiple times throughout the book. I also didn’t care for All I Want at all. The premise was intriguing, but it fell flat and the last chapter ruined everything for me. Donut Fall in Love was a super adorable romcom that I keep thinking about, All About Love was a reread after bell hooks’s passing, Sex Cult Nun was a page-turner and I couldn’t put it down. Chan’s The School for Good Mothers was creepy and immediate, much in the vein of a tomorrow dystopia.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

⌛️ Witch Hat Atelier, vol 2 – Kamome Shirahama (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Donut Fall in Love – Jackie Lau (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Lady Jenny’s Christmas Portrait – Grace Burrowes (2/5 stars)
⌛️ All About Love – bell hooks (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Sex Cult Nun – Faith Jones (4/5 stars)
📓 All I Want – Darcey Bell (1.5/5 stars)
📓 The Book of Mother – Violaine Huisman (3/5 stars)
⌛️ The Light Ages – Seb Falk (4/5 stars)
📱 The School for Good Mothers – Jessamine Chan (4/5 stars)
📚 Velvet Was the Night – Silvia Moreno-Garcia (3.5/5 stars)
📓 Spidertouch – Alex Thomson (3.5/5 stars)

I read 8 books in February! I wanted to read a little bit more romance than I did, but the highlight of the three I read was definitely an ARC of Emily Henry’s Book Lovers. It was weird reading Station Eleven again in the midst of a pandemic, but I still enjoyed it! I hadn’t realized until reading Sea of Tranquility that Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel, and Sea of Tranquility are loosely connected, referencing each other. The Latinist

 

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📱 Book Lovers – Emily Henry (5/5 stars)
📚💞 Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel (4.5/5 stars)
📚 Iron Widow – Xiran Jay Zhao (4.5/5 stars)
⌛️ Pahua and the Soul Stealer – Lori M. Lee (4/5 stars)
📚 Knight of Desire – Margaret Mallory (3/5 stars)
📱 Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel (5/5 stars)
⌛️ The Latinist – Mark Prins (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Wicked Intentions – Elizabeth Hoyt (3/5 stars)

ON THE HORIZON

I got Laura Thompson’s Heiresses from the publisher from a request because I love reading about women in these magnificently wealthy families. Now that I’ve finished reading Station Eleven and watched the show and read Sea of Tranquility, it’s time to revisit The Glass Hotel, especially after learning that all three of these are interconnected, however loosely. And I want to be immersed in her writing. I want to go read some more of Mandel’s backlist after reading The Glass Hotel. I have been putting off starting the High Republic era in Star Wars fiction, but I am ready to make the jump, especially with so many works out already. I have also desperately missed reading Star Wars adventures. Nightshift is set in late-90s London, and something about the premise (and cover) keeps drawing me to this, so it’s time I give in and read it.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📓 Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies – Laura Thompson (thank you, St. Martin’s Press!)
📓 The Magnolia Palace – Fiona Davis (thank you, Dutton!)
📚💞 The Glass Hotel – Emily St. John Mandel
📚 Star Wars The High Republic: Light of the Jedi – Charles Soule
📱 Night Shift – Kiare Ladner (thank you, Mariner!)

WHAT I ACQUIRED

I bought House of Sky and Breath on release day, and I also picked up a physical copy of Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey. I have it on my Kindle, but this is something I want to read in a physical form. I downloaded The Atlas Six, The Library of the Dead, and We Were Dreamers recently because I’m in the mood for some fantasy and Simu Liu’s memoir piqued my interest!

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📚 Crescent City: House of Sky and Breath – Sarah J. Maas
📱 The Atlas Six – Olivie Blake (thank you, Tor!)
📱 The Library of the Dead – T.L. Huchu (thank you, Tor!)
📚 The Odyssey – Homer, trans. Emily Wilson
📱 We Were Dreamers – Simu Liu (thank you, William Morrow)

ON SCREEN

GAMING: I’m playing my first otome game, Café Enchanté, and I’m a few chapters in now and really enjoying it. I bought Pokémon Arceus, but I want to finish Café Enchanté first. I’m also surprised that Game Freak/Nintendo are coming out with another Pokémon game this fall!! I have also been playing World of Warcraft on and off, and this new patch seems interesting with more/new things to do than the dailies I’ve been doing for a while. I don’t necessarily raid aside from LFR, but the last two raid sequences have been not all that fun for me.

TV: I’ve watched Station Eleven and enjoyed the differences between book and show, I rewatched all of New Girl but the later seasons were more annoying than I remembered them being. I am currently watching The Book of Boba Fett and The Gilded Age, and The Gilded Age is only making me want to rewatch Downton Abbey from the beginning.

MOVIES: Uncharted was a lot of fun, and I’m very excited about The Batman.

PERSONAL

Let’s just say I am glad 2021 is over! 2022 has already been chaos, but all things considered, I’m here, I’m alive, and that’s what matters.

BOOK REVIEW: The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine Chan

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: The School for Good Mothers, by Jessamine ChanTitle: The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Published by Simon & Schuster
Published: January 4th 2022
Genres: Fiction, Dystopia
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Source: Edelweiss, Publisher
Buy: Bookshop(afflilate link)
Goodreads

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.

Until Frida has a very bad day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.

Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.

A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.

 Chan’s The School for Good Mothers is a reflection on the government’s hold on social services, children, and women’s bodies/lives. In a similar vein of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the events in this book teeter on our society’s imminent future, serving as both a criticism and a warning. 

Frida’s marriage has crumbled at the birth of her daughter, her ex-husband leaving her for another woman, and she is struggling coming to terms with her new life as a mother and an ex-wife. She leaves her daughter home alone for a couple of hours, to go to work, to escape the tedious and difficult reality, and she finds herself entangled with Child Protective Services as a result of her misjudgment. 

She knew it was wrong to leave her child behind, knew it was not the best choice, and she hopes for some sympathy in her break in good judgment when the agency reviews her case. Frida is told that there is a new program being offered for reform for these “bad mothers,” and she is sent off to a reform school just outside the city with other mothers who have also made bad judgments for their children (ranging from relatively mild to extreme).

These schooled mothers are now under constant observation and evaluation with childlike animatronic dolls that record the mothers’ every move. Privileges are taken away if the mothers don’t adhere to strict rules and performances. The surveillance has an undercurrent of violence that is difficult to ignore, especially in contrast to the school for fathers that is seemingly much more relaxed.

The concept of a “perfect mother” can be incredibly damaging to anyone trying to live up to societal expectations, and especially to those with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues that can interfere with day to day life, activities, and care. Lapses in judgment can happen to any of us, but how is a year’s worth of strict instruction and surveillance a better course of action than compassion and resources for parents navigating the raising of children? How are we to consider motherhood today, especially considering the shift of raising children from being a family/community task to being the task of a nuclear, “traditional” family with the figurehead being the mother? How are we to consider the “ideal motherhood” that’s rooted in heteronormative Western whiteness in contrast to the way in which other cultures view motherhood, parenthood, and the raising of a family?

Written in a clinical, stark style that fully showcases the horror simmering underneath the surface of the perception of perfect motherhood, The School for Good Mothers is a chilling, disturbing read that begs a second consideration of what it means to be a mother, what’s expected of mothers, and how we perceive motherhood in our society.

Review copy from Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss, thank you!

WAITING ON WEDNESDAY: Upcoming Fantasy Releases

- Meg

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine (though it seems as though it’s been a while since she updated that particular blog, so if you know of the current host, if there is one, please let me know) that highlights upcoming releases that we’re impatiently waiting for. This week I’m featuring upcoming/newly released fantasy titles I’m excited to read!  As usual, pub dates change without warning, so keep that in mind! You can also click on the cover photos for more detail/bigger file size.

  • Daughter of the Moon Goddess, by Sue Lynn Tan – Inspired by ancient Chinese mythology about the moon goddess Chang’e and her quest to free her mother pits her against the most powerful immortal in the realm. The cover of this is gorgeous, I have an ARC waiting to be read, and this kind of lush fantasy is something I am in the mood for. (January 11, 2022)
  • Gallant, by V.E. Schwab – I’m always excited for a new Schwab release, and this looks amazing. (March 1, 2022)
  • Misrule, by Heather Walker – The first installment of this sapphic retelling of Aurora/Maleficent was one of my favorite reads of 2021, and I am dying DYING to get my hands on the finale. (May 10, 2022)
  • Nettle & Bone, by T. Kingfisher – This has a fairy tale vibe I’m here for and that I was already sold on, but the phrase “a chicken possessed by a demon” in the description has made me want this so much more. (April 26, 2022)
  • Spear, by Nicola Griffith – I still need to read Griffith’s Hild, but this is a queer retelling of Arthur mythology that I’m so excited to read. (April 19, 2022)

BOOKENDS: October, November, December 2021

- Meg

Let’s just say 2021 was a year and carry on.

CURRENTLY READING

I am still picking through The Big Book of Science Fiction but this will be finished this year. I have a plan. 👀

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

📚 The Big Book of Science Fiction – edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (38%)

FINISHED READING

I read 12 books in October, 7 books in November, and 8 books in December.

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

⌛️ A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson (4/5 stars)
🎧 The King of Crows – Libba Bray (4/5 stars)
📓 A Spindle Splintered – Alix E. Harrow (5/5 stars)
💾 Because Internet – Gretchen McCulloch (3.5/5 stars)
📱 My Heart is a Chainsaw – Stephen Graham Jones (DNF)
💾 Gild – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars)
💾 The Lady From the Black Lagoon – Mallory O’Meara (3.5/5 stars)
⌛️ These Hollow Vows – Lexi Ryan (4/5 stars)
⌛️ Matrix – Lauren Groff (4/5 stars)
📓 Yours Cruelly, Elvira – Cassandra Peterson (4/5 stars)
💾 Glint – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars)
⌛️ A Tip for the Hangman – Allison Epstein (5/5 stars)

📚 The Ex Hex – Erin Sterling (4/5 stars)
📱 What Moves the Dead – T. Kingfisher (5/5 stars)
⌛️ House of Salt and Sorrows – Erin A. Craig (4/5 stars)
📚 Ninth House – Leigh Bardugo (2/5 stars)
📱 Nothing But Blackened Teeth – Cassandra Khaw (3.5/5 stars)
⌛️ The Wolf and the Woodsman – Ava Reid (3.5/5 stars)
⌛️ Witch Hat Atelier, vol 1 – Kamoma Shirahama (4/5 stars)

📚 The Duke Goes Down – Sophie Jordan (2/5 stars)
⌛️ The Heroine with 1001 Faces – Maria Tatar (2.5/5 stars)
⌛️ The Last Thing He Told Me – Laura Dave (3/5 stars)
💾 Gleam – Raven Kennedy (3/5 stars)
⌛️ Kingdom of the Wicked – Kerri Maniscalco (DNF)
📚💞 Zel – Donna Jo Napoli (5/5 stars)
⌛️ Medieval Bodies – Jack Hartnell (4.5/5 stars)
💾💞 Sabriel – Garth Nix (5/5 stars)

ON THE HORIZON

I will be updating this for January’s reads to keep things more organized!

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

 

WHAT I ACQUIRED

I will be updating this for January’s reads to keep things more organized!

📚 bookshelf pick  |  📓 physical review copy  |  📱 digital review copy | ⌛️ library/borrowed | 💾 ebook | 🎧 audiobook  |  💞 reread

 

ON SCREEN

I will be doing 2021 recaps of each of these in the upcoming weeks!

GAMING:

TV:

MOVIES:

PERSONAL

Let’s just say I am glad 2021 is over.